


What a Small World

by stopthetraffic



Category: Larry - Fandom, Larry Stylinson - Fandom, One dirction - Fandom
Genre: Cute, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-03
Updated: 2015-10-03
Packaged: 2018-04-24 16:10:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4926259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stopthetraffic/pseuds/stopthetraffic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>High school Au of Louis and Harry meeting</p>
            </blockquote>





	What a Small World

Louis had liked Harry ever since they met, four months ago in May, after one of his friends had introduced him to ‘the mysterious chalkboard artist’. See, Harry did these drawings of characters from tv show’s on the communal chalkboard that had been put up in the school, a kind of urban legend that everyone knew about. Louis had taken photos of all of them, understanding the references, and wanting to document the drawings.

They had met after Louis had expressed his enthusiasm to Stan, showing him pictures and discussing over who it may potentially be, he of course wanting to congratulate the artist, but also be in on the drawings. He’d wanted to draw something on that chalkboard ever since it had been installed, but he had never gotten the chance.

Stan had found out two days later, telling Louis that there was going to be a meet up at the chalkboard at lunch. He had misheard though, and thought Stan had been speaking about a year 12, he chickened out.

Louis had forgotten about the meet up by lunch, and was sitting with his group when Stan had rounded the corner, with a younger lad by his side, crazy curly hair which bounced as he walked. He had seen this junior around, how could he not, that kid was gorgeous. Immediately, he got up and introduced himself, being pulled into an enthusiastic hug, paired with a loud greeting. The kid-Harry literally shone like the sun.

Over the next month, Louis found Harry to be quite quirky and just weird enough for him to find Harry attractive, he even found an excuse to take selfies when Harry dressed up as Sherlock (in full trench coat) on a mufti day, tugging at the accuracy of the jacket and giving compliments to a flushed Harry. 

They had fallen out of contact for the next month, not really having much to say, not really minding either. Louis saw Harry around school a few times, running into him during lunchtimes and occasionally waving, not really much, June going into July was a quiet period.

In the meantime Louis had started catching up to a new series, pestering Stan to spoil the ending. Stan, of course refused and he ended up texting Harry to tell him the ending, agreeing to meet him at lunch. He found that Harry’s spot wasn’t that far from Louis’ and he almost didn’t see Harry at first until he was engulfed by a hug that caused both of them to stumble several metres before Louis tripped over his own feet and fell. Laughter rippled throughout the entire area and Louis laughed it off, still sat on his bum as he leaned back into the concrete to laugh at how stupid he must have looked.

Louis couldn’t even see Harry as he tossed his head back and laughed along with the juniors, soon turning into a cackle as Harry stumbled over Louis’ feet, into the plant’s beside him. At least the attention was off him and he pulled himself up and extended his hand to a very flushed Harry who refused his hand and got up himself. He then found out the ending of his show and returned to his group, wanting to be away from Harry’s group who then named him ‘bush boy’.

They had talked almost everyday since then and grew closer, and Louis learnt how to write in ‘enochian’ to impress and communicate with Harry. Louis felt special, sharing this language with Harry, as he soon started writing little notes to give to Harry daily, drawing silly little scenarios of his favourite characters in his tv show. He wrote enochian dialogue and decorated the notes with symbols from the show. He soon even changed his timetable, waking up several minutes earlier in the morning to catch the same train as Harry to deliver his daily notes, soon colouring and refining his drawings.

Harry kept every one.

As August ended, Louis’ year 11 yearly’s rounded the corner and the real problem arose when he had greeted Harry with an enthusiastic hug and the delivery of a note, not having been at school for the past few days as the school called them ‘study days’ where there was a choice to stay at home and of course, study for the tests. He had pressed Harry to open the note, as he was proud of his drawing, and watched the happy smile cross Harry’s face, as it did every day. He lived for when Harry smiled, eyes crinkling in the corners and a dimple popping into his cheek.

Louis thought Harry was the sun.

They continued to one of the rooms that the computer support were suspected to be sitting in, knocking on the door and finding no one, they continued to the next room, soon settling into a line of other people in need of a computer fix. Harry and Louis chatted, catching up on the things Louis missed while he was away from school.

Conversation ceased momentarily, until Harry nestled his face into Louis’ shoulder, mumbling about what he sure he misheard was “why is it so hard to have a straight crush?” Louis was shocked, this was the first time Harry had admitted to swinging a way other than straight, as Harry was Asexual, and already knew Louis was gay.

Louis thought that he suddenly had a chance with Harry, even as Harry confessed his crush to one of the boys they had been walking with, as they walked away from the other two so Harry could return a cable to the computer room.

Of course jealousy panged Louis’ heart to hear about Harry’s crush, and he tried to steer Harry off that path, knowing how painful straight crushes were. Did Harry know how much Louis even liked Harry? He would be up to date Harry in the drop of a hat if Harry had changed his mind. It was almost painful hearing about how much Harry liked the other boy.

Over the course of the last week of school before the holidays, Louis had to fake an act of support for Harry’s crush, giving him genuine advice and really wanting Harry to be happy. He invited Harry ice skating on the last day of school, the Friday which he always attended at the rink. Harry declined and informed Louis about a horse riding camp that he went on annually, he’d have to leave early on the last Friday, and wouldn’t be able to go ice skating.

Admittedly Louis was fine with that until he went in search for Harry at the train station on the last day of school, a note in his hand from the maths lesson he had last period. ‘happy holidays’ in enochian, with his favourite characters holding signs and kissing, He needed to give this to Harry before Harry disappeared for the holidays. Louis rushed to the front of the crowd where Harry usually was, his heart dropping as he reached the top of the second set of escalators and still not seeing any sign of Harry.

Louis pocketed the note before looking around once more, standing on his tippy toes and finally spotting the unruly mop of curls he had spent hours marvelling over. Quick to take the note out, Louis rushed over to Harry who he just noticed, was talking to his crush. Louis said hi and delivered the note, being rudely ignored as Harry didn’t focus his attention on him, returning an awkward hi and taking the note, whilst still trying to focus on his crush. Louis held his head high and continued his way home, a little heartbroken, but feeling accomplished.

That night when Louis showed up to ice skating, he was immediately greeted by Fezo, well his real name was Elliot, but he always insisted everyone called him Fezo. They were mates who had been ice skating on Fridays for a good year and a half together, he had originally met Fezo, when they were both learning how to figure skate, being the two best out of the usual Friday gang that ice skated, and had become friends from that, Fezo had of course switched over to Hockey and Louis had stuck to figure.

However, towards the end of the night Fezo had confessed his crush for this girl at his school, rambling on about how cute she was and how weird it was for him to feel that way for a girl. Louis had totally forgotten that Fezo was also Asexual, and he quickly brought up Harry, telling him they had to meet, Fezo was on board and cheekily asked if Louis was crushing on him and that Louis should invite Harry to meet on the last Friday of the holidays, which was Elliot’s birthday.

Louis hesitated, he hadn’t really admitted his feelings for Harry to anyone yet, since his previous crushes usually took over his life and turned him into an obsessive freak, and then scared the crush away… He had been trying to keep his feelings for Harry on the down-low so Harry wouldn’t run off.

He told Fezo yes that night with the reassurance that “Harry’ll fall for you one day, don’t worry mate.”

With a lonely heart the next morning, Louis scrolled through tumblr, stopping on Harry’s blog to update Harry’s inbox with random asks, receiving some answered ones in his inbox, which he re-read three times. Louis had spammed Harry’s tumblr inbox for the first week, finding a particular emoji which made him giggle and send to Harry on anonymous numerous times, adding other questions and weird and strange anons, even a John Cena meme.

The first weekend of the holidays was Comicon weekend, Louis was a little sad that Harry couldn’t go as they had made a few plans, but his younger sister had made him take him. He was going as peter pan and his sister was a battle take-on of a Disney princess, she had made a sword and had surprisingly pulled off the execution of the outfit quite well.

The outfits that Louis saw that day were amazing and he tried to get photos with as many cosplayer’s as he could. He saw so many tv-show related merchandise he wanted to buy, but only had $30 to spend. He eventually found some iron rings which subtly played into a tv-show Louis and Harry watched. And were quite cheap, so he purchased three, one for him, one for stan, and one for Harry, since Stan would also appreciate the usefulness. Louis also had trouble choosing from replica’s of some of the props from his favourite show that he watched, checking the price tags and settling on the necklace of the main character.

After finding his merchandise, the rest of the day was a little uneventful and he let his sister go off by herself whilst he stayed at the Lego stall, contributing to a mural that was a community work in progress, there were little cards with coloured squares which corresponded to a white 8 by 8 lego bit, which needed to be filled out with different coloured Lego’s before one of the men in charge put it up in the correct spot on the board. Louis made about twenty before his sister complained about wanting to go home.

Harry returned after a week into the holidays, answering Louis’ weird questions and making posts about the strange things he thought was funny. Louis was overjoyed.

Louis’ mood was lifted for the first day upon Harry’s arrival and he quickly asked if Harry was free to go ice skating on the Friday. There was an issue with convincing Harry’s mum and Louis listed a bunch of reasons as to help Harry convince his mum into letting him go.

Harry also managed to bring up the topic of his crush and was currently freaking out over some pictures his ‘bae’ had sent to him. It was making Louis jealous, but he played his questions out calm and collected and went along with the situation, asking if Harry thought his crush liked him back, the typical questions he’d ask any of his friends.

He played his next questions out well, and even took a slight interest in the situation, asking other questions to make himself sound like he was being supportive. So far Harry was hopeless at getting it on with his crush who, was actually sounding very, _very_ straight. To Louis’ dismay Harry was very much still interested in his crush, which they codenamed to ‘Sparrow’.

Whilst Harry took his time to reply to Louis’ recent asks, he snooped through Sparrow’s tumblr, trying to figure out what kind of person he was, as they had never talked, and Louis was sure Sparrow didn’t like him. There was nothing personal on what he had scrolled through yet, and it wasn’t Louis’ blog type either.

With nothing else to do, he decided to help Harry win over his crush, and clicked Sparrow’s ask before formulating the perfect fake text which looked realistically like a spam message, asking the respondent to answer the questions and send to five mutual blogs.

He hit send with a cleverly placed question asking about any crushes and notified Harry about how helpful he was being. He didn’t receive an answer until 6:30 that night, and had already seen that Sparrow had answered the spam message with a short refusal to answer ‘chain mail’.

Louis groaned at that, as now he had to come up with more questions which would be both suss enough to pass for a normal unsuspicious ask, and get answers about Sparrow’s preferences. He sought out Stan’s help the next day, leaving yet another anonymous ask sucking up to Sparrow, and calling him his ‘favourite blog’.

It worked within half an hour, and sparrow answered them, yet Louis- on Harry’s behalf- was still frustrated with the brief answers Sparrow had typed out. He vented his frustration to Stan who screamed along with him via Facebook.

On Wednesday morning, when Louis was sure Harry was online, he posted a risky text post, he had lying in his queue: “Do you ever have that one friend where it’s like, you’re straight and I respect that, but if you wanted to date me, I’d totally be down for that.” He didn’t even delay when he hit enter and started to panic several minutes later when Harry reblogged the post, adding “Story of my life”.

 _What an oblivious asshole_ , Louis thought, all panic disappearing. He hadn’t told Stan about his crush on Harry either, and was in the midst of an unusual conversation between himself and Stan, when Harry left an ask in his tumblr inbox: “IM SORRY, BUT IS STAN THE STRAIGHT FRIEND YOU’D DATE?”

Oh shit. Harry did question the post. He quickly had to type back that Stan was bi and that he had no interest in his friend, and that the friend was someone who Harry didn’t know, to try and throw Harry off the scent. Harry then told Louis to marry Stan, to which he shook his head at. He may have had feelings for Stan at one point, but Louis had gotten over anything more than platonic with Stan.

Louis then thought about his friends that he would be down to date, dropping a quick, thoughtless ask into Harry’s tumblr, saying that he had several friends that he felt like he would date. Harry replied promptly asking if Louis wanted to share who they were. Louis suddenly, properly thought about his friends that he would date…His brain tricking him and only coming up with Harry.

Louis, very so bluntly, told Harry, that he would definitely not date Stan, and that the rest-okay, maybe just Harry- wouldn’t date him back. He was sure that Harry wouldn’t want to date him, also, Harry had a crush on someone else, Harry wasn’t interested in Louis. Harry couldn’t be, Louis was a terrible person. Why would someone as amazing as Harry ever even think about liking Louis? No, no, Harry didn’t like Louis…But of course he definitely _hoped_ that Harry liked him, even he knew there was an unlikely chance.

Taking a small chance, Louis opened Harry’s ask box and dropped in: “Look, I’m still suffering though, I mean like, crushes on people keep me alive, but like he’s so hot, and I die inside, because I know he’ll never date me.” Hitting send before he could even think twice, he sat back in his chair, inhaling deeply. He was starting to panic, did he let on too much? Would Harry find out?

Harry continued to press on about Louis’ secret crush and Louis tried to subtly explain that he didn’t want to talk about a straight crush, in case it started to overwhelm him so much he couldn’t function. Harry still pestered him to reveal who the crush was, but Louis changed the conversation topic and focused it on Harry and his crush, asking questions about how that was faring. Louis also confirmed some details for Friday as Harry had said that his mum had let him go ice skating.

On Thursday morning, Louis woke up early and was surprisingly awake at the same time as Harry (which was unusual as Harry was an early riser) Since it was early, and Louis was feeling sentimental he created another post for Harry to maybe pick up a hint on Louis’ crush, something he kind of wanted Harry to see, and something he kind of didn’t want Harry to see: “Crushes on oblivious people are so hard because it’s like ‘I am crushing on you, and you think this is platonic, but I don’t want to tell you, in case it ruins everything, but being around you makes my heart beat and my knee’s weak’ and you’re trying really hard to get them to like you, but they’re not even noticing.”

His frustration was still running through him as he continued to vent through the tags, mentioning something about how lovely his crush was and that he was sure that he didn’t even like Louis back. He posted it without hesitating and started talking to Stan, almost forgetting about the post until Harry left an ask in his inbox: “whO IS THE LAD YOU WRITE THE CRUSH POSTS ABOUT??”

In a cheeky mood, Louis told Harry it was a hot boy he wanted to date. Not even thinking for a moment. Harry replied with sarcasm.

Louis replied with a very vague answer, telling Harry that his crush was incredibly amazing, and that was all he was going to reveal about it since he ‘didn’t want anyone knowing about his crush this time’. Harry was then intrigued and asked if his crush went to their school, Louis completely ignored that as _what could he say?_ If he said yes, it would definitely become too obvious to Harry as to who it was, as Harry was smart, Harry would know and turn Louis down. He couldn’t risk that happening and ruining the friendship, Harry was too important to Louis.

Louis then acted like a bit of a prick and told Harry that his crush was confidential and that he didn’t want anyone to find out. He may have been too protective and Harry started to question Louis, asking him who he would tell as he was just Louis’ ‘irrelevant year nine friend’. Louis then had to quickly define that Harry was only his irrelevant year nine friends to his group, not to him. He definitely considered Harry dearer than some ‘irrelevant year nine friend’.

Harry seemed to give up and listed traits he wanted to know about Louis’ mystery crush. Panicking, Louis quickly sent a panicked ask wondering why Harry wanted to know so bad. Harry replied with: “Sharing is caring! Also I told you everything about my crush so”

Louis bantered back, finally growing the balls to describe Harry…to Harry. He copied the traits Harry wanted to know and filled them out in Harry’s ask, deciding to have fun with this and be a complete dick about the situation: “Looks: HELLA! Sexuality: Okay, I’m not too sure, he’s a little confusing okay.. Star Sign: to tell or not to tell amirite Etc: He’s really talented.” Louis laughed as he hit send, receiving an ‘are you kidding me’ within a minute.

In happiness, Louis sent a smug reply reflecting on how he didn’t reveal a lot, happy with himself. Harry on the other hand started getting frustrated with Louis’ stubbornness and told Louis that he wasn’t even going to know who it was.

At this moment Stan asked how Harry and Sparrow were going, to which Louis confessed his feelings for Harry to Stan, as the situation was starting to become troublesome and he needed Stan’s advice on what to do. Louis was starting to panic, Harry wasn’t dropping the matter and Louis wasn’t ready for Harry to reject him yet.

Another ask popped up from Harry while Louis was explaining how deep of a hole he was in to Stan and he quickly checked what Harry had sent: “Fine…how about we play a game? Ill tell you something and you answer yes or no. He has green eyes.” Louis’ heart must have skipped a beat and he quickly screen shotted the message and sent it to Stan, screaming about how Harry knew. He must have, what a suss ask, Harry was on to him, Harry _knew._

Stan seemed to know what was up too and suggested for Louis to describe a random person in their grade. But he couldn’t do that. He hated the people in his grade, who could he describe though? _Wait._ He had an internet friend-Theo- that he followed on Instagram and snap chatted. He’d just describe Theo, perfect. He told his plan to Stan who agreed and he quickly replied to Harry’s ask, saying that his crush’s eyes were green but they were a subtle green.

Harry took a little more than a minute to reply, but Louis had already thought up several reasons for Harry to tag him as suspicious. He had taken 5 minutes to reply to that, he was being too obvious, oh no, he had ruined everything. Harry’s reply came in: woop woop! 1 for me! Okay, do they have blonde hair?”

Louis frowned, if Harry was trying to describe himself, why would he say blonde hair? Harry didn’t have blonde hair? Did he successfully throw Harry of the scent? He screenshotted it and sent it to Stan. He replied to Harry’s ask, saying that his crush was the complete opposite-since Theo had jet black hair-Harry seemed to be thrown off the scent entirely.

Stan thought he had thrown Harry off the scent too, and Louis made a post, relieved, but also frustrated at how oblivious Harry was.

He wrote his text post, quick and fast, not over thinking it: “Tfw your crush is THE MOST OBLIVIOUS HUMAN BEING TO EVER WALK THE PLANET.”

Louis added a little of his frustration into the tags and posted it, immediately feeling guilty and sending Stan what he posted, letting him in on situation and laughing it off nervously. He quickly scrolled through his dashboard and reblogged everything he could to drown the post so Harry wouldn’t see it. He even went through the ‘crush’ tag, finding a particular picture which said “that awkward moment when your crush asks who your crush is”. Louis thought that it would be perfect to reblog for Harry to see, but he chickened out and stashed it into his queue instead.

Harry replied quickly and asked if Louis’ crush had any talents, assuming that Louis had been describing black hair. _Thank god that Harry was thrown off the scent entirely._ Louis then described what he knew about Theo, his star sign (which he guessed from remembering Theo’s birthday was only last week) and what he shipped alongside Louis, he then made a few characteristics up, not quite sure, but it looked legitimate. Harry seemed to go along with it, and Louis started screaming about it to Stan, relieved that Harry was going along with the lie, replying to Harry, and telling him a little bit more about Theo.

Louis’ happy mood didn’t last long as a notification popped up from Tumblr, saying that Harry had reblogged his ‘oblivious post’.

_Shit. Harry knew. Louis was in for it. Shit, shit, **shit**._

Opening the reblog, Harry had added “I feel this” to it. Was this real, was Harry actually that _god damn_ oblivious to what was happening? Laughing, Louis screen shotted it and sent it to Stan, not believing his dumb luck. He then went back to the post, scrolling through the tags that Harry had added, since Harry was _notorious_ for adding tags.

It was normal for the first three until Harry had tagged ‘don’t read the tags, honestly Louis, you wonder and wonder why I pry…’what are his talents? Omg green eyes??’ Btw I don’t have black hair.. Oh this is going to be awkward if it’s not me though…eh” Louis’ heart sunk and he screenshotted through all the tags, sending them to Stan in a flurry of panic.

_Harry knew. This was it. This was the **end**. He would **never** see Harry ever again, Harry was going to reject Louis, **this was it**._

Harry replied to Louis’ extra information reply he sent about Theo, telling Louis that he needed to delete a post real quick. Did this mean Harry assumed Louis liked him the whole time? _And Harry seemed okay with it???_

Opening Harry’s inbox, Louis sent a message to Harry telling him that he read the tags. His heart was pounding and he could feel the heavy thumps in his chest, his breathing pace becoming irregular and fast.

_What was Harry going to say?_

He received Harry’s response under a minute: “I will go drown now, oh my god, please excuse me for misreading a situation, good bye, I am dead, thankyou and goodnight”

**_“Misreading a situation”_ **

Harry _knew_ Louis liked him and Louis.. for some reason felt as if Harry would have reacted positively… _What?!_

Louis had to know, he _had_ to know how Harry would have felt if Louis had a crush on him, quickly sending the message: “IF THAT WAS YOU THOUGH, THAT I WAS DESCRIBING, WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED, TELL ME”

With bated breath, Louis waited, starting to bite on the inside of his cheek and trying not to have a heart attack. _This was it._

Louis scrambled for his phone as Harry’s response came through: “sorry I am currently dead. (but I would have cancelled our ice skating plans and taken you to the movies, probably..I don’t know, I didn’t think that far ahead I was too busy BEING DEAD)”

Louis’ mouth dropped open. This..this meant that HARRY LIKED HIM BACK!? Just to make sure that it wasn’t a prank, Louis asked if what was happening was real and that he was currently freaking out. Harry’s response was quick: “the person you have tried to reach is currently unavailable as THEY ARE DEAD, sorry and goodnight”

Thinking that it would be dodgy for Louis to just change his mind and tell Harry that he was in fact describing him, without sounding like a faker, he reblogged the crush photo he had in his queue, adding his tags: “ME RIGHT NOW YOU LOSER, oh my god, you are the most oblivious asshole I have ever met I swear to god” Hitting reblog as fast as he could, he hit up Harrys ask, telling him to check his most recent post.

Whilst Harry took his damn time to reply, Louis realised that his Facebook messages hadn’t even sent and that Stan was out of the loop at the moment. He dialled up Stan to tell him what was happening, hyperventilating over the phone whilst Stan told him he needed to chill.

“You know, it sounds like he’s reciprocating feelings Louis.”

“BE REALISTIC STAN!” Louis panicked into his phone, breathing heavily. “Oh shit- OH SHIT, he answered, ok! Bye, wait for the messages to send, oh my god” Hanging up, Louis quickly checked what Harry had replied with: “Ask Fezo, if it’s chill if we could reschedule ice skating, What movie do you want to go see?” with an attached link for the cinemas.

_Was this **real?** Was this actually happening? _

Louis didn’t know what to do, this had never happened before, but as much as he liked the movies, ice skating always trumped everything. Also they wouldn’t have a chance to actually _talk_ during the movies.

Declining Harry’s invites to the movies, he stuck to ice skating, Harry agreeing to the original plans. Things settled, and he leant back into his chair, trying to get a grip on what just happened. Opening Harry’s tumblr, he quickly sent an ask: “So..uh I’m slow, but do you like me?”

Harry replied quickly, informing Louis that whilst he didn’t originally have a crush on Louis, he would be ‘so down to date you Lou’.


End file.
